


to hell, who follows on back

by you_aint_my_dad



Series: The Fifth Judge of Israel [1]
Category: Far Cry (Video Games), Far Cry 5
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Basically A Lot of Things Are Bad, Brainwashing/Conditioning, Canon-Typical Violence, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Gen, Implied Past Child Abuse, Kidnapping, Non-Consensual Drug Use, OC deputy, Part one of three, Quite Frankly Insensitive and Wrong Character Opinions on Mental Illness, Religious & Idealogical Themes of the Concerning Kind, Shitty Wilderness Survival, Will Put Specific Warnings on Each Chapter
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-18
Updated: 2019-09-03
Packaged: 2019-10-12 01:37:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17458139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/you_aint_my_dad/pseuds/you_aint_my_dad
Summary: Deputy Marc Ibañez. He is wrath, he is death, he is justice, he is sin.And Eden's Gate should have just gone and killed him off the first time.(Or, before Deputy Rook, before the Reaping, before the arrest, two years before the Collapse, it takes Eden's Gate four days and twenty seven hours to capture Deputy Marc Ibañez - the second time.)Part One of Three.





	1. one-hundred ten seconds

**Author's Note:**

> warnings in this chapter include:  
> \- violence  
> \- descriptions of injury  
> \- swearing  
> \- Ibañez generally being a goddamn idiot

 

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

 

 

The first time Eden's Gate comes for him, it's cold and dark, gone late in late December.  
  
It's an ambush, and a clever one at that, lured in with a false eleven-six by the orders of a turncoat dispatcher. The Peggies have learned from their past mistakes, see. This time its six on one. Its overplaying the board for the sake of guaranteed success.

By the end of it, ran down after a fifteen minute chase from one end of the lake to the other, Deputy Ibañez is forced to finally concede when his 2008 Kimberlite Darralas is broadsided by an off-white SUV twice it's size. Fifteen minutes, and it comes to an end on an isolated stretch of mountain road, his car knocked aside into the left-hand lane, a crumbled up chassis of shattered glass and crumpled metal.  
  
(Later, he'll learn, this is not a new tactic of theirs - that he's lucky there wasn't an edge to fall of into, that they wanted him alive.)  
  
If he turns his head he can see it; the lettering, white on green; SHER        DE A R MENT and metal gaps scratched into the paintwork, revealing the underlayer of once-brown paint. The lights are still on. Blue-red, smudgy illuminations in the slanting half-frozen rain, dual colours alternating in phases set at a rapid eight seconds interval. The sirens, too. They scream into the surrounding darkness, he knows, but Ibañez is mute to it. Everything is silent but the pounding blood and fury in his ears and the way his teeth squeak together as he clenches his jaw.

And the men of Eden's Gate, of course. Ibañez can hear them, too.

He crawls out of the smashed in driver's side, handgun levelled in a white-knuckled grip and collapses. He chokes. Around him, boxing in and cutting off exits, the Peggies shout at him from behind their vehicles. They're armed. They're masked and armoured, wearing kevlar weave he'd seen on soldiers, packing equipment that shouldn't be seen on civilians. They're very well prepared. He thinks, hazily, that it either says something about them, or something about _him_.

Surrender, they say, and come home. Surrender and we will save you.  
  
In response, defiant in his temporary immortality, Ibañez snorts back a glob of bloody phlegm and spits it onto the asphalt.

He doesn't intend for it to be a statement. He puts very little thought into the things he does.  
  
Either way, he's known for making impressions.

 

 

"You gonna give me that handgun?" Only Jacob Seed would be wearing a parka with a non-regulation name tag. "Or do I gotta take it off you?"

 

 

(The answer will always be the same, at any rate.)

 

 

There is a reason why it happened, of course. Deputy Marc Ibañez has been fighting with the cult on and off for years.

He stopped for the most part when he earned his badge. There were protocols, after all. Laws. Ibañez could play fast, but he'd never risk it to be loose. The years had come and gone for dumb young luck.

Instead, he exchanged occasional small-time thuggish harassment for write-ups, for a relentless campaign of insignificant legal action, be it tail lights, speeding tickets, permits or illegal weapon modifications.Whatever it would take to get them into handcuffs. Whatever got the so-called Baptist into Falls End three, four times a week, armed with his paperwork and vicious condescending attitude, every single time one of his brother's feckless flock needed releasing from custody.

It did little to impact the Project on a large scale and Ibañez wasn't stupid enough to think it ever would. Not with the way the Project failed to fall into anything consequential and not without the Deputy attempting to abuse the law by escalating beyond his due. It must have been annoying, by no doubt - an added strain onto the logistics of their infrastructure, somewhere. Ibañez was a persistent little bastard if nothing else. But, no.

It wasn't the great, long coming revenge he dreamed about. It wasn't the retribution for past discourtesies he ached for with every fibre of his being.

Whitehorse had warned him. Joseph Seed was not a man to be fucked with.

Hindsight, Ibañez supposed, stung like a bitch.

So do his ribs, incidentally. They sting, and they bleed and in the end, when all is said and done, they throw him into a waiting SUV with no back seats. It's dark and cramped and there's a wet patch against the fabric after he lies there for a bit, cuffed with his own handcuffs and beaten with enough force that they need not restrain his legs. If his head wasn't a confused tangle of repeating signals, he thinks he might be able to smell it. The blood, that is.

He grits his teeth through the pain, looks up through the sunroof up into the inky dark cloud cover, heavy with rain, and wonders if he's going to go out like this - and what it will look like if he does.

Because he's thought about it; they all have. The Project at Eden's Gate had been in Hope County long enough to make an impression and for every new day, there were more and more folks they didn't talk about back at the office. A growing list of unmentionables. The family members who went missing, who suddenly took to religion and never came back, who went out for drives and never came home, who drowned in rivers and lakes, who randomly OD'd in a field, or suddenly skipped town. Convenient and semi-explainable scenarios where it was hard to do anything, prove anything, despite the phone calls from worried husbands and wives, mothers and sons. Despite terms like 'kidnapping' and 'abduction' and 'forced against will' dotting the report paperwork, again and again, over and over, muttered little words that made Whitehorse rub at his nose and sigh, made Hudson set her jaw and look away.

He wonders if Whitehorse would mark him up as one of them. Or, maybe, maybe they’d think enough is enough; if they'd come looking for him. Maybe Nancy has already told them. Maybe she has said nothing at all.

Maybe it doesn't matter.

Fucking Nancy.

 

 

They don't kill him, though, and there's the issue.

Not for a lack of trying, either. Ibañez fights, or he tries to, because really that's all he's good for; he swears and writhes, spits, but they are expecting it. They bag him, then they drag him, drag him across uneven ground, seized on both sides like a prisoner which, he guesses, he is.

What he does know for certain is he's shorter than Jacob Seed. Short enough that at one point, Ibañez figures out that he can slam the top of his head into the underside of the man's jaw, which he does, when he gets the first opportunity. It makes Jacob bite into his bottom lip, and he swears, releasing Ibañez and kicking him in the back of the legs in retribution. That's how it goes, from there. Jacob swearing and spitting blood and Ibañez, also swearing, scrambling off, trying to redirect his weight away from anywhere but the ground, feet kicking out into some direction - any direction, but here.

It seems like a plan, and Ibañez runs with it, until he is dutifully informed that attempting to run anywhere when you've got a bag on your head is a plan set for disaster. Its lesson he learns almost immediately, having barely made a metre, when he slams head first into what he thinks is a wall, maybe a building. 

Judging by the noise it makes when his skull smacks straight into it, it's metal. Steel, maybe. 

"Hoo boy," Jacob laugh-groans, as Ibañez lies there, sprawled on his back and immobilized with the surprise impact. "That one looked like it hurt, sweetheart."

There are footsteps. Then the bag is ripped form his head. Seed crouches down and his eyes find the Deputy's face in the gloom, he makes a sucking noise of mock remorse and smirks. 

Ibañez's face twitches.

"Same could said for 'yerself," he says after a split moment, brings his cuffed hands up to point the man's lip, breathless in agony and general exertion. "Gotta a little, er, right there."

Jacob's expression falls blank and his tongue probes the offending cut on his own lip. For a moment neither of them do anything. Then he leans back on his heels and stands, smiles - but not in a nice way. It's all sarcasm and teeth.

As Ibañez is hauled up by two of the same Peggies who destroyed his car earlier, Jacob hauls off and socks the smaller man straight in the stomach. 

It's a meaty hit, one that makes the Deputy choke and cough, half-bent. The eldest of the screwball trichotomy rubs at his knuckles, then at his mouth.

"Joseph wants to talk," He looks at the bloody smear left behind on the back of his hand and sighs. "Now, that's what we're gonna do. Doesn't matter how hard much you fight. It won't matter in the end."

A pause. Jacob retrieves the bag and shakes the dirt and clinging water from the fabric. He shakes his head.

"Here's hoping that you've knocked some sense into yourself."

The bag is pulled back over. Then, there is darkness.

But it's not the kind of darkness Ibañez is expecting, not exactly. The thunderous, furious thumping in his chest tells him as much. Still alive. Still alive.

For now, anyway.

 

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Deputy Ibañez is not the same "Rook" at the start of FC5. He's something far more inept and terrifying. He can be found on my [Tumblr](https://maximenheyenadr.tumblr.com/post/182045406864/deputy-marc-iba%C3%B1ez-hope-countys-resident-shovel) occasionally.
> 
> Cheers to the discord folks for slowly influencing me again and again to finally get this... thing, out. 
> 
> And thank you, reader, for reading ♥


	2. nine hundred-odd

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> much of the same for warnings this time around,  
> \- some injury  
> \- religious dogma that some people may find uncomfortable. Nothing too extreme, but some victim-blaming.

 

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

 

 

His bravery dulls by the time he comes face to face with Joseph Seed.

It’s strange, to see a man who considers himself a living prophet. Not God, or _a_ god, but thereabouts enough. The Project's faithful band of assorted lunatics seem unable to tell the difference anyway; he is their messiah, physical and authentic and, Ibañez supposes, that is all that matters. Yet despite his so-called godliness, Seed is no more different than the rest of them, really. The Deputy watches the shirtless ponce pace around the lectern, while he himself stands in the pews, cuffed and flanked, still-bleeding and half-lucid, and struggles to understand. To _get it_. 

Skinny. Middle-aged. Bad tattoos. Bad haircut, untrimmed beard, lanky and sharp-angled. He’s unsettling, Joseph Seed, but he’s also human. And really fucking weird.

The Project owns a holdfast on one of the islands, a little white church surrounded by various buildings and a ten-foot electrified fence. It is here that the Father speaks, most often. It is here that they take Ibañez.

There are other people, too. Maybe. The Deputy is not entirely sure. What remains of his cognizance is delicately anchored between that of Joseph, a numb nothingness, the very edges of pain, and the ever-menacing presence of Jacob who, given the lingering persistent stench of damp, firewood, sulphur and that shitty dollar store pine 3-in-1, is still right behind him. There are other shapes and sounds, but his head has no idea what in the hell they are, only that they're around him, surrounding him, touching him and if shapes can be excited, these ones sure are.

The only real clarity comes from Joseph, stood up there all half-naked and self-important, rambling away. So in an attempt to steady himself, Ibañez concentrates all his remaining focus in on the Father and tells himself that it's out of contempt.

And absolutely nothing else. 

"You sell your soul to these wealthy men who claim to speak on behalf of God," Joseph preaches, maybe twenty or so minutes in. The Deputy's head falls forward, too heavy for his neck to support it, chin knocking against the top of his jacket's zipper. A hand - Jacob's hand, he realises stupidly, too late - pulls his head back by the hair. "Then instead of having bliss in your life, you live a life of utter misery and only find peace when you _die_."

 _Sounds like regular Catholicism,_  some coherent, isolated part of his brain provides, snide, and Ibañez smiles. Or, at least, he tries.

"But all is well, now," the Father holds one of his hands out between the pews, off into the distance beyond the doors. Ibañez has to wonder if it's still raining, and his twitching not-smile fades when he cannot remember the time. It's dark, but for Montana in late-December, that's to be expected. He's not sure why service would be held this late. Or is it early, now? Somewhere in between?

As he struggles to make sense of it, Joseph continues on. The man stops moving. Draws still.

"For God has seen you, and he knows what you have suffered. He has seen your hearts. He has seen your souls! He has seen you, and he has led you to me. Away now from those wolves wearing the robes of the false shepherd, you have come to me. You have come home. And under the grace of God, you shall never suffer again."

It's a nice little sentiment. Would be damn cheery, if Ibañez hadn't been beaten bloody and restrained, with Jacob's jacket thrown over his hands to hide the fact from curious eyes.

When Ibañez's head drops down for what he assumes is the fifth time in as many minutes, Jacob resorts to not just hair pulling but by holding him by the back of his neck. The man's hands are huge; broad palmed and rough, and Ibañez feels the fresh sensation of discomfort travel all the way from his vertebrae, down his arms, to his hands.

From there, the congregation sings. They sing some long, warbling number while Ibañez and Jacob stand in silence. The Deputy couldn't join in even if, for some sordid reason, he had wanted to - he doesn't know the words and it's hard to vocalise anything when an oversized man-ape has his fingers wrapped around your neck hard enough to make the muscles spasm. Hard enough, that he could feel it through the surging perplexity of foggy near-nothingness. Empty, but stifling and confusing. Then there was the tightness, a near burn at the tips of his fingers, pins and needles. He wanted to sit down.

His legs sincerely agree with him.

Before his brain can catch up, both knees clock out in an instant, giving in under his weight. For a split, horrifying moment, Ibañez thinks he's going to hit the floor, but he never makes the impact.

Jacob doesn't let go. The man's other hand wraps around the back of Ibañez's belt, stopping him from dropping beneath waist level. Instinct dictates that the Deputy ought to push against the floor, to prevent his trousers riding up at the very least, but when he tries, his knees do nothing. The muscles don't work when he tells them to.

This, apparently, annoys the eldest Seed brother. The fingers on the back of Ibañez's neck squeeze down in warning and the Deputy chokes somewhere in between pain, shock and fear.

It's a mistake.

Joseph is drawn to the noise, almost as if he was expecting it, for he doesn't react with any worthwhile surprise. From his vantage point, he drags his eyes over the pair of them, as if it's just one amusing little interruption underserving of a proper reaction.

But that wasn't what Ibañez was _looking_ at, what concerned him the most; the tingling little warning, the sharp, foreboding siren ringing in the back of his head screaming _watch out!_ as the rest of his brain struggles to catch up.

It was all in the eyes.

The Deputy tenses and stands upright, utilising a burst of determined energy he wasn't sure he actually possessed, half slouched, muscles fueled with that same sort of reserve adrenaline he produces when he knows he's being observed. It's the same feeling from back in the woods, where he walks from time to time on his weekends off to think, when the eyes of the local wildlife fall on him. Tracking.

Now, they're set behind wide-field yellow lenses and unlike outside in the great outdoors, this time, Ibañez cannot get away. Not easy.

If the half-smile Joseph Seed gives the Deputy is any indication, he knows it too.

 

 

It is not their first-ever meeting. Ibañez has met Joseph Seed before.

Multiple times, though he's certainly tried - and mostly succeeded - to block out most of them. Back in his old hometown, before Hope County, back when Eden's Gate was a mobile freakshow. Back when things had been simpler. True, they had also been harder, but that was the all-too-common struggle of standard American poverty for you; half-educated in the finest tradition and barely, just barely, getting by. To him, back then, it wasn't anything of the ordinary. It just was. 

And then, suddenly, it wasn't.

Because Eden's Gate came into town and changed everything.

The Deputy still has the picture. He'd tried to reinforce the edges with scotch tape, but years upon years of being squashed into his cigar-case had done its damage. In it, his mother's hair was mostly its original brown. Joseph Seed somehow sported a haircut that was worse than the one he had now. Both of them were smiling. Ibañez, known then simply as  _Marc_  and maybe twelve-years-old, was not.

He looks back to that blurry mash of pre-adolescence features and remembers... little. A naughty kid, for the most part, that he is certain - maybe not  _bad_ , but certainly known for mischief. That was what joyriding was back then. Not so much criminal theft as it was a foolhardy boy's only source of entertainment.

Eden's Gate had cars, see, and Ibañez had wanted to drive them. Not keep, just drive. He liked cars. 

Suffice to say, Eden's Gate did not like him doing that, either to drive or to keep. He'd gotten caught the third time around. The in-between is foggy, but he does remember his mother falling under Joseph Seed's spell when she finally bothered to turn up.

It barely took them an hour, he remembers. In the time it took for the Peggies to hand him over, give him a half-hearted grilling about the so-called sins of theft and reckless behaviour and traded reassurance of not going to the police, his mother had been smitten. From there, Ibañez recalls the relief in his gut turning into fury. He remembers screaming, hitting the walls, once they got home and she had told him to pack his things. He remembers Seed's short, satisfied little smile when they'd showed up at the parking lot the next morning.

He remembers seeing Hope County for the first time some numerous weeks later.

The rest of it is, as they say, history. Ibañez got out at fourteen and only ever looked back long enough to conjure up elaborate revenge fantasies. It's been set in his heart since the moment Joseph Fucking Seed and his two fucktrumpet brothers caught him trying to jostle the ignition on the Buick Regal T-Type. It was reinforced tenfold when they stole his mother. It nearly came to overload when the kidnappings started and the department was powerless to do anything. There it had stayed though, fluctuated, festering away until the time was right. 

It's gotta be fate, he thinks. Either that, or God is real and he's having a roaring good time up in there laughing at them.

It doesn't matter in the long run anyway.

 

 

Once the singing dwindles to a tentative halt, the Father's arm slowly arcs around until it's settled before them, palm facing up. For a few seconds, neither he, Jacob or Ibañez do anything. Not until four individual fingers gesture inwards once, then twice, and Ibañez is seized and dragged out into the aisle.

His legs stop working again halfway there. It would be embarrassing if Ibañez had any idea who these people really were, aside from a collection of uncertain shapes. At any rate, he must look like some serious shit up close, because Joseph Seed makes a weird, strangled grunting noise when the Deputy collapses at his feet. 

"Deputy Ibañez-" Jacob Seed pulls his head back by the hair again, exposing the Deputy's face and throat to the ceiling and to Joseph's displeased stare. He was regretting letting it grow out. His hair, that is. "-did not come quietly."

In response, the Father gave the Deputy a questioning look. Then he smiled. "That is... disheartening to hear, but we must not be discouraged. God has commanded us to save all souls. Willing or not." Both hands gesture to the wider congregation. "And now, here you are."

 _Well, that is disturbing_ , is what the Deputy wants to say, instead, tongue feeling thick and blood feeling thin, he grumbles something that was supposed to be "get off", but it came out like he was reading the name _Geoff_ back when he didn't know homophones were a thing. 

Despite his pathetic attempt at pronunciation, however, the meaning must have been clear enough. With a nod of the head from Joseph, Jacob let go of his hair. 

Though Ibañez's relief was short-lived; no sooner than he was released, Joseph's hands were on him. Two uncomfortably hot hands on either side of his face. Like Jacob's, only less scarred.

"A naughty person, a wicked man, walketh with a froward mouth. He winketh with his eyes, he speaketh with his feet, he teacheth with his fingers; Frowardness is in his heart, he deviseth mischief continually; he soweth discord." The Father recited, voice louder above that of a whisper, and Ibañez scowled despite himself. "Therefore shall his calamity come suddenly; suddenly shall he be broken without remedy. These six things doth the Lord hate."

His voice gets louder.

"This man has been waging war against our people!" He shouted to the wider congregation, and there is a commotion, Ibañez thinks, but is unsure. His ears hurt from the shouting. "A petty battle of sin, of misplaced wroth and anger. But we rise above those who would wish us harm - for I tell you, this is not the root but a symptom of the world's decline."

Ibañez rolls his eyes in a petty display of disagreement, but he can't really say anything to that. He's not exactly wrong about the first part. That and Joseph Seed has pressed him a bit too close for comfort, the base of his palm coming to settle on the top of the Deputy's head, cheek pressed into the studs on his belt loops. 

"They fear us, they want to take away our freedom, our faith! But they do not act against us with integrity but instead send the misguided, the lost, the hurting after us." The Father crouched down to the Deputy's level and did not let go. "This man was one of you many years ago, and now look upon what the corruption that has taken place. Look at what they have done to my fallen child, your lost brother. They took the love in his heart and turned it into wrath."

Ibañez was actually offended. That wasn't how it was at all! 

The fury at such a blatant twist of the truth had the Deputy seething in inner turmoil. It twists at his insides, made him want to stand up and scream, _He's Lying!_ And the fucker must know it too, or he's utterly deluded because the very faintest of creases appeared between the Father's eyebrows, as if he was shocked at the motion of someone not outright agreeing with his so-called word.

"Something to say, my son?" He asks and by God, Ibañez swears, he better be lying. 

 _You're lying,_ is what he wants to say, but he's struggling to move his jaw, make his tongue move. The inner frustration of not being able to properly communicate stirred amongst the bitter anger and fury at being so willfully misinterpreted, twisted for the benefit of his bitter enemy. That, and the _pity_. The fucking _pity_ of it all. But... There were as also much more basic, and in his opinion, far more... impactful methods of expression. Ibañez forces back the brewing anger and attempt to muster calm, keep it cool and useful and not hot and uncontrollable. Yes, he thought, measuring the Father, up and down. Knees to head. Simple, easy demonstrations that required very little thought.

He didn't need a nine hundred-odd page book of riddles to make his point. So instead of arguing, Ibañez breathes out. Long and deliberate, through his nose. 

And then he headbutts the Father so hard his sunglasses break.

 

 

If nothing else, he will savour the look of shock on Joseph Seed's face for the rest of his life. 

 

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

 


End file.
